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Jubilee!

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Jubilee!
GenreRevue
Show typeResident show
Date of premiereJuly 31, 1981 (1981-07-31)
Final showFebruary 11, 2016 (2016-02-11)
Locationoriginally at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, which later became Horseshoe Las Vegas
Creative team
ProducerDonn Arden
Costume designerBob Mackie
Costume designerPete Menefee
Official website
Jubilee! - Full Cast and Crew photo - 2014
Jubilee! Cast Photo (Final Cast) 2016 - Costume Showcase
The Dollys from the Follies
Disco Section Costume - Close Up
Dolly Sisters getting ready
Jubilee! showgirls[1]

Jubilee! was a Las Vegas Strip-based spectacular revue.[2] It opened on July 31, 1981 at an initial cost of 10 million dollars and was originally produced by Donn Arden.[3] Donn Arden set the standard for all the spectacular Las Vegas shows that celebrated female beauty, in combination with a demand for only the best; in costumes, set, and talent. When it closed in 2016, this resident show at Bally's Las Vegas was the longest-running production show in Las Vegas. The Jubilee! showgirls were an icon of old Vegas. The show used costumes designed by Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee. UNLV Special Collections houses many of the original costume design drawings which can be accessed online through the Showgirls collection from UNLV Digital Collections.[3] Many of the show's sets dated back to the original production and include the sinking of the Titanic and the bull used in Samson and Delilah. The bull was 27 feet (8 m) tall and collapses down to 13 feet (4 m) after it has been destroyed. The bull was the heaviest single piece of scenery in the show weighing 3 tons (2700 kg). It took 9 stagehands to move it from one position to another. Jubilee!'s longest serving principal dancer from the opening night until her departure 23 years later was Linda Green. The final closing cast consisted of 3 female singers, 3 male singers, 18 male dancers, 23 topless dancers, and 19 female dancers. Within the female covered and topless dancers, they were further categorized as "short" and "tall" dancers. A "short" dancer is a female dancer between 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) and 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) and a "tall" female dancer is between 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) and 6 ft 2 in (188 cm). One may have been surprised at how tall the dancers were because of the proportions of the stage, which was three and a half stories high, giving the illusion that the performers are smaller in relationship to the stage.

The show ended its 35-year run on February 11, 2016.[4][5][6]

Creators

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  • Donn Arden - Producer
  • Fluff LeCoque - Associate producer
  • Michael Pratt - Assistant company manager
  • Winston Hemsley - Choreographer
  • Rich Rizzo - Choreographer
  • Pete Menefee - Designer
  • Bob Mackie - Designer

Notable dancers

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  • Tiffany Coyne, model[7]
  • Greta Jones, Full Show Swing
  • Janet Ford Spelman, Principle Dancer, Tropicana Casino Legends Hall of Fame Inductee
  • Kaleigh Jones, Featured Dancer
  • Michael Forsch, Line 3 Captain
  • Nathaniel Burich, Full Show Swing
  • Sabina Kelley, Best Ink, Tattooed SuperModel, 1st Heavily Tattooed Dancer to Headline a show on the Vegas Strip
  • Jessica Lane, Featured Dancer (Dolly Sister)
  • Lisa Louise Wilson, Principle Singer, Singer Line Captain and Female Singer Swing (Fired)

Acts

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  • Act 1 Showtime! Putting It into the Right Vernacular
  • Act 2 A Specialty Act that varied over the years, toward the end was a hand balancing act
  • Act 3 Samson and Delilah Tonight, a Lesson from Ancient History[8]
  • Act 4 Another Specialty Act that varied over the years, sometimes a magic act, towards the end was a gaucho act
  • Act 5 Titanic Away We Go on the Mighty "Unsinkable" Ocean Liner
  • Act 6 Another Specialty Act, towards the end was an aerial act
  • Act 7 The Finale A Tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

Former staff at time of closing

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  • Damian Costa - Entertainment Director
  • Diane Palm - Company manager
  • Suzanne Swanson - Assistant company manager
  • Darrell Clulow - Technical director
  • Alicia Morse - Stage manager
  • Amy Schrage - Assistant Stage manager
  • Donna London - Wardrobe manager
  • Gene Lubas - Show Manager
  • Ryan Rappaport - Entertainment Manager
  • Daniel Salas - Showroom Manager
  • Carol Beeman - Production assistant
  • Ken Billington - Lighting Designer

Technical/show information

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  • At its closing date Jubilee! features a cast of 66 showgirls and show boys. When it first opened the cast had over 100 performers in it.
  • The theater seated 1,033 people in a combination of theater style seats, swivel chairs, tables and booths.
  • The show was topless, for 18 and over
  • There were 75 stagehands working on the show.
  • The total width of the stage wall to wall was 190 feet (58 m).
  • All of the dressing rooms were in the basement, 2 flights of stairs below the stage, making for some dancers to do over 1,700 stairs a night.
  • The heaviest set piece lifted by a motor weighed over 6,000 pounds (2,700 kg) and the heaviest set piece of scenery lifted and lowered by the crew weighed 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg).
  • The sinking effect of the Titanic was achieved by a combination of the ship and the stage moving at the same time, creating a singular illusion.
  • Over 1,000 costumes were designed for Jubilee! By Pete Menefee and Bob Mackie.
  • The feathered headdresses worn by the showgirls weighed up to 35 pounds (15 kg).
  • There were between 20 and 2,000 feathers on a single costume.
  • Delilah's crown was the largest jeweled headpiece in the show. The crown was 2 feet (60 cm) tall and is covered with 20 pounds (10 kg) of rhinestones.
  • The costumes worn in the Grand Jewel Box Finale tribute to Florenz Ziegfeld, was designed by Bob Mackie. There were 36 individual designs, each based on the jewel tones of amethyst, sapphire, emerald, and ruby.[9]

Legacy

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Screenwriter Kate Gersten visited the Jubilee! show before it concluded and was inspired to write a play about the dancers in a similar Las Vegas show's closing. That unproduced play became the basis for the screenplay she wrote for The Last Showgirl, starring Pamela Anderson as a Las Vegas showgirl near the end of her career at the closing of a long-running show.[10]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Phil Konstantin. "Jubilee Dancers at KUSI TV". americanindian.net. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  2. ^ Bell, Joseph N. (15 July 1988). "Donn Arden's Art: Beauty, Disasters Wrapped in Extravagance". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 10 November 2024. Donn Arden...was there, sleeping in a suite on the 10th floor when the fire broke out early in the morning of Nov. 20, 1980...Margaret Kelly...
  3. ^ a b UNLV Libraries. "Jubilee!". Showgirls. UNLV Libraries Digital Collections. Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  4. ^ "End of an era: 34-year-old 'Jubilee' concludes — what's next?". lasvegassun.com. 11 February 2016. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  5. ^ "'Jubilee' show at Bally's to close after 34-year run". lasvegassun.com. 12 December 2015. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  6. ^ "Curtain coming down on 'Jubilee!'--Las Vegas' long-running showgirl revue". 14 December 2015. Retrieved 23 June 2017 – via LA Times.
  7. ^ Wright, Becky. "Tiffany Coyne the real deal". Hers. Utah: Standard-Examiner. Archived from the original on 2012-01-14. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
  8. ^ Liann Hanson (14 November 2010). "Moonlighting Vegas Cop Takes It Off Onstage". NPR.org. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  9. ^ Merrill, Jane (2018). The showgirl costume an illustrated history. McFarland. p. 224. ISBN 978-1-4766-7174-1. OCLC 1240159008.
  10. ^ Coppola, Gia; Anderson, Pamela; Gersten, Kate; Shipka, Kiernan; Song, Brenda (September 7, 2024). "Pamela Anderson's Role Of A Lifetime In 'The Last Showgirl'" (Interview). Deadline Hollywood – via YouTube.
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